Burbage

DJKillaQueen Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > It's not so much assiting, but filling the gap > left by cuts. > > I can understand why charities oppose government > cuts though. Cuts mean increased traffic to those > charities... That's far from the case for many charities, which are effectively operating as contractors for government work. That may involve thinking up policies, delivering end-of-life care, training workless youngsters, rehabilitating offenders and a whole bunch of other stuff of more or less importance. The advantages to the government of 'involving' the 'third sector' are clear. Or as clear as no tax and unpaid labour can be. The advantages to the charities are also clear, at least to the well-paid chief-execs and 'fundraisers' who, by tarting themselves out though large state contracts, have been able pocket their salaries without having to worry about raising money from the public. And it's those, together with the umbrella-bodies, think-tanks, foundations, consultancies, leadership groups and the whole self-serving bureaucracy that's grown like fungus on the backs of volunteers, who are now complaining. They have good reason to complain. But to pay them any heed is to make the same mistake as the thousands who've been inadvertently funding Tuscan villas through their taxes, donations and freely-given labour. Many years ago, charities were founded to deliver services that the state can't or won't provide, and they have always been busier when times are hard. But that's what they are for, and it's why the public give them money. Charities that only exist in economic boom times, or to facilitate tax dodges for former prime ministers, are a recent invention and the sooner they're dead and buried, the better.

Strawbs Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > If we were to lose the hospital, I assume the > seldoc out of hours would also be relocated? Not necessarily. It depends on what remit the NHS's new Property Company is given. Their job will be to manage ex-PCT land when the CCGs take over. That may mean flogging it all to developers, or continuing with existing rental agreements and opening the rest to trusts/groups/consortia that come up with viable proposals and the money to fund them. Or a mixture of both, depending on whether their job is to rake in as much cash as quickly as possible or to maximise revenue streams and treat the land as an appreciating asset. As the Property Company isn't fully up and running yet, it's impossible to tell. But, like all landlords, they'll be reluctant to evict paying tenants until they get a better offer and it doesn't look likely that there will be any very soon.

James Barber Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Hi burbage, > No the Lib Dems hand delivered a survey to every > East Dulwich and many Village ward residents > asking thoughts about various proposals - what > medical services, new primary school, retirement > village, Eco homes EDZED. Oh. Sorry. I'm afraid I was relying partly on memory, which was irresponsible of me. I hereby apologise for any misunderstanding and retract the second sentence of my previous comment, replacing it with the following: The LibDems threw A Vision together in December and ran a survey over them, both online and in print (basically asking people whether they'd like to see half the site turned into retirement homes or something in exchange for having some services kept there). I hope that better treads the narrow gap between the forum's convention on truthiness and the rules of tedium. But if it doesn't, I'd be delighted to clarify even further.

the-e-dealer Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > There was a huge public consultation and plans are > on the web Slightly true. The LibDems threw some vague proposals put together in February and ran a survey over them (basically asking people whether they'd like to see half the site turned into student flats or something in exchange for having some services kept there). I'm sure there were some results, but I don't think anyone knows what or where they are. But that was nothing to do with the PCT's consultative travelling circus, which started around the same time, showcasing their largely evanescent 'vision' of service bubbles. That was not related to the hospital in particular (or general), but aimed at engaging the public in the planning of service provision. Sadly, being held at teatime on a weekday, the roadshow seems to have skewed the demographic, and subsequent tours of baby farms don't seem to have unskewed it, with maternity issues rating particularly highly (and yes, the price of coffee was genuinely given as a maternity service issue). An online consultation also ran, which might have tipped the exercise into the realms of 'huge', but 157 survey responses might be deemed unimpressive in statistical terms, and with 79% of respondents female, only arguably representative. By the time of the PCT's public meeting in July, it seems that the Hospital was no longer considered viable, and it was announced (or possibly re-announced, it's never easy to tell) would be transferred to PropCo (the NHS Property Company) to keep it for the benefit of scaffolders and security guards, presumably until some landbanker happens to fancy a bargain. So you're right up to a point. There was a consultation. And there may be plans on the web. But neither bear much relation to either the past or the future of Dulwich Hospital. But you needn't take my word for it. The PCT Business Support Unit's comprehensive webpage on The Dulwich Project has all the details we're allowed to know, including minutes, findings and flannel.

LondonLogCo Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Can they use a chainsaw, I wonder ? Not obviously: (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goat_tree)

It wasn't unexpected, given the TfL pay deal. But it will hurt a lot of commuters, possibly unnecessarily, although not nearly as much as the increases in rail fares. But I'd guess that many of us can avoid the rises. It's reasonably possible to commute to town from here on pushbike, or even foot, and although pedalling through the cold, dark and wet isn't much fun, thinking you're doing something that might deprive a strike-happy button-pusher another above-inflation pay rise can bring a ray of sunshine to even the coldest heart.

woodrot Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > On the whole, anyone who wants to be a politician > is pretty much vermin. That's a bit unfair. Not all politicians arrive via the route of a meaningless degree and a nepotisitic (or horizontal) Westminster job. The majority still come from what they call the 'grass roots'. These are usually people who start off by thinking that a difference needs to be made, and that they're the person for the job. Especially if their current job isn't paying all the bills. After a bit of research, however, they find out that to stand any chance of being elected to anything, they have to join a party. So that's what they do. And after a few years of being 'active' (lots of brown-nosing and door-stepping and envelope-stuffing and agreeing with whatever they're told to agree with), they'll simper enough at a selection committee to get nominated for a councillorship, which means lots of committees and surgeries and answering the phone to people complaining about bins or leaves or next-door's cat, and provided they don't say anything wrong or possibly misinterpretable at that job, they might be deemed a safe enough pair of hands to be sounded out as a candidate for MP. Up till that point, they're almost human. Some councillors, despite being deeply odd, aren't obviously on the take, and genuinely want to make things happen, if only to stop the complaints or to get their picture in the paper again. They may have lost any illusions about making a difference, but that's understandable. Just see Cllr Barber's thread for a comprehensive list of very good reasons. But for some, if their noses are brown enough, Westminster may beckon. And few will resist the lure of ?60k and a staff budget and a little bit of plutocratic privilege to make up for the years they've spent canvassing and flattering and sitting in meetings on behalf of people they didn't much like to start with. Now, it's payback time, and that's when they become vermin. But while we have a partisan democracy, we'll never get anything better. A few independents will have a go, but unless they're in a constituency where people vote on the basis of something other than tradition, it's a hiding to nothing. Those that we have had, with only a couple of exceptions, are usually MPs already who just happen to have ditched their party or vice versa. For me, my least favourite has to be Tessa Jowell. If only because she's (on occasion) nearest.

There's a bingo hall at the Elephant. And they do tea dances at the Blackheath Halls. But I can't think of anything nearer. That's not to say the seniors don't get out for a natter once in a while, but the Post Office does neither drinks nor dinners.

Annette Curtain Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Most of them ? Very nearly all of them. But I've always been a sucker for kittens.

KalamityKel Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > everything that has a beginning has an end... neo This reminds me of a rumour I once heard of a German joke about sausages. Sadly, I cannot remember if it was relevant.

There was a lot of it about when I was growing up. My mother warned me, though, and despite receiving several offers to view gentlemen's puppies, kittens and, in one case, pheasants, I turned most of them down. But then, in the 70s, corporal punishment was commonplace, teachers smoked and sometimes drank in class and sexism was rife. The streets were filthy, the economy was broken and people knitted their own clothes. We've, thankfully, come a long way since then. Which is probably why these offences are coming to light now rather than in the days when at least some level of abuse was taken for granted. Whether it will make any difference is anyone's guess, but I, for one, won't mind too much if the culprits have some awkward explaining to do. It's none too soon for any of them.

Has anyone consulted the moths?

Glad I'm not the only one who forgot about the clocks. Grey wool, I think.

Earnings

Toothpaste

Since housing benefit went to a limit based on a market average, there's a good financial reason for making mistakes that might affect the averages in an upwards direction. Without control of the whole market such mistakes would have to be unfeasibly substantial. I'm not saying that's the case here, just that there's a lot of money at stake and although I don't believe the majority of landlords, lettings agents, surveyors, estate agents and wide persons would dream of bending the odd rule in the hope of a quick buck, I do believe in the Easter Bunny's Magic Basket.

Huguenot Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Crikey. I'm not sure I have data that needs that > kind of protection! My cheque book is on the > sideboard. > > What kind of stuff do you protect? Membership lists, customer lists, circulation lists, survey responses, competition entries and so on. Anything that contains any personal data (i.e. data that could be used to identify an individual) that I have been required to process or retain for any reason as a result of any job or role I've taken on, paid or voluntary, or data relating to a business that I am expected to handle in confidence (i.e. not intended for immediate publication). Most of this is to do with my work but a proportion is spare-time stuff and, of course, my own data. As a rule of thumb anything that, if on paper, I'd lock in a filing cabinet or shred before disposing, gets encrypted. Like most people and organizations, I don't have any easy way to monitor data breaches, or the time to look for them. So I take precautions which, as well as firewalls and virus scanners, include encryption tools.

panda boy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I mean what goes through peoples minds when they > accelerate towards you down the middle of the > road? I doubt it's much, though clearly a bit more if they're playing against an SUV, a bit less if it's a kid on a pushbike. > This is the main point of my thread, on > specific roads around ED with the square speed > cushions in place. The more that appear the more > my heart sinks a little as the roads they are on > seem to become more dangerous at certain times of > day. To be fair, there'd be room for the chickenist hump-straddlers on both sides if it wasn't for on-street parking. Abolishing on-street parking would save all the time and trouble currently squandered on CPZs. It would also reduce crime, improve sight-lines, save a lot of minor accidents, make enforcement much easier, ease the journeys of emergency vehicles, make road repairs and tree surgery a lot simpler to carry out, smooth traffic flows, increase road capacity, reduce pollution and eliminate chickenism. There would be a downside, though, and those traders who imagine they rely on the denizens of a legless utopia would no doubt write some very stiff letters indeed. Whether, as a society, we're willing to pay that price in return for the lives of just a very few children is, as ever, moot.

antantant Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I usually just winzip the folder it and then put a > password on the zipped file. That can work nicely. But it depends on why you're encrypting the data, what the data is, what you need to do with it. Password protection via Office or Winzip (or most other compression formats) is fine for, say, emailing not-very-sensitive and not-very-all-personal information and for deterring, for example, the lodger from looking through your 'accounts'. But they can be cracked without too much difficulty. Where proper encryption is needed, I use AxCrypt and TrueCrypt - both are free - for data I need to keep secure. They're proper encryption programs in that it's impracticable to decrypt them without the password, which also means that if you lose the password, you've lost the data. But they, or similar, are what I'd consider to be part of the 'reasonable steps' you'd be supposed to take if you're dealing with personal data. AxCrypt works on files one at a time (you can encrypt a folder, but that just turns it into a folder containing encrypted files - the filenames and folder structure are retained). That's good for one-off confidential documents, and for quickly sharing encrypted files with other people - provided they're running AxCrypt (and Windows - which is what AxCrypt runs on) If you're dealing with a lot of data that you need to keep secure, or Mac users, then TrueCrypt is better. It's more complicated in how it works - it makes encrypted area of disk space (a whole disk, a partition or a file) that works like a separate disk on which everything is encrypted, but once you've got the hang of it, it's fine. Which means you can work on files normally without leaving unencrypted copies lying around, or having to remember to re-encrypt them after you've worked on them. Other encryption programs are available, but I don't think there are any that that work on all platforms, so what you choose will depend on what you, and the people you need to share data with, are using.

Give it a year or two and dimmble LED light bulbs that don't need special fittings, or fancy installations, should be available at a reasonable price. Currently, they're about ?35 (down from about ?50 a few months ago - example here) so it's probably not worth splashing out on them yet. But they should be more efficient and last much longer than than the standard energy-efficient flourescent lamps* and a warmer light than current LED systems. *These can last 8 years or whatever it says on the box, but as maxxi pointed out, a lot don't. Especially the dirt-cheap versions trotted out by the utility companies as a cynical way of spending the Renewables Obligation on heavily-branded packaging. Something that should never be forgotten when reading the guff they print on your bill, or watching the ads you're having to pay for.

uncleglen Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > There was a spate of egg dropping from buses onto > car windscreens at one time And chucking them at pedestrians and cyclists. I know at least one of the perpetrators was a young person, just out of school, with a job behind the tills at a Camberwell supermarket, access to as much out-of-date stock as they could carry and no ideas what else to do with it. They found out fairly quickly that (a) supermarket uniforms aren't cloaks of invisibility and (b) the cameras on the buses aren't just for show. Eggs weren't nice, but they were better than the rocks, bottles, fireworks or used nappies I've had chucked at me since. Tomato ketchup sounds a comparative luxury, but I don't suppose that's helpful. The only consolation is that the more it happens, the less you take it personally. The best obstacles are imaginary. There's one where two groups of kids stand on opposite sides of the road and, as a cyclist approaches, pulls on an imaginary rope. I've only seen it done the once, on Camberwell Grove, where I fell victim with the appropriate lack of grace and a lot of swearing. As a trick, it's brilliantly minimal, but dangerously effective.

LondonLogCo Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > What is this thread about? It appears to be about a gibberist short of an outlet. I'd let well alone, myself.

bonniebird Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > he was a powerful, influentual man, > maybe they were frightened and the thought of know > one believing them etc. That's something to do with it, but not everything. There have been plenty of cases of abuse where the perpetrator wasn't particularly powerful, though obviously more powerful than the victim, who rarely has any supporters at all. Abusers tend to make their victims complicit in their abuse, so it's the victims that feel the shame and guilt. And that's why they won't feel comfortable facing their abusers again, whether in the street or the courtroom. The abusers, on the other hand, seem able to convince themselves they've done nothing more wrong than shared a secret - a secret they end up holding over their victim. That's what makes abuse toxic, and that's one of the reasons why victims don't feel comfortable while their abuser is alive. It's not just that nobody believes the victims. Even if you do find the courage to make an allegation, you won't have any witnesses or corroborative evidence. You probably won't even have a coherent statement to make. As victims of any sort of crime will know, it's easy to forget times and dates and conversations after a traumatic event and, oddly enough, people can find that vagueness unconvincing. Especially if there are jobs and possible lawsuits to consider. And even you are believed, it's unlikely to lead to justice. Courts want evidence, and so do employers. And even where justice is possible, then what? Will it make intimacy suddenly comfortable, or talk of childhood less threatening? Will it bring back the careers abandoned, without apparent reason, before they started? The accounts of the victims who have spoken are full of attempts to forget, to put the abuse behind them and build a life, often without the benefits of confidence, self-esteem or normal, easy relationships. The last thing they seem to want is to have their day in the papers. Even long after the event, victims won't speak out. Unless, as we've seen in several high-profile cases, others speak out first. We probably can't imagine the motives. It may be the relief that, after decades, you're no longer alone. Or it may be the fear of your secret being discovered by others before you've made your case. They're no doubt powerful, but they're clearly not about getting justice. If we can do anything useful, it's to take victims seriously and sympathetically and try learn what we can from them. Not that we're likely to be able to learn much. We now have CRB checks and child-protection policies and, beyond that, we can't entirely isolate children from adults, or stir up witchhunts on the basis of rumour. Education is important, too, but only to an extent. We could, perhaps, teach children about the different forms of abuse, how to collect evidence, how to make consistent statements and how to recruit reliable witnesses, but that would destroy the very innocence we're trying to protect. Although many (myself included) are not surprised by the Savile allegations, it would be wrong to conclude anything from that. Children seem to enjoy the company of eccentrics, so they naturally arouse our suspicion yet most of them are (as far as we know) harmless. What we should bear in mind is that abusers, like murderers, look mostly like ourselves.

Smiler Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > You might well be able to get details of patient > numbers etc with a freedom of information request? Would you need to? Patient numbers are on the NHS Choices website (here's a link to GPs in SE22 - scroll down and click the 'patients' bar) It won't tell you everything you might want to know, but it give useful clues as well as well as letting you compare numbers with, for example, one or more of the four different practices that seem to be run out of the Lister.

Fuschia Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The phrase 'walk in centre' hints at a speedy > turnaround .. There are no official NHS walk-in centres in Southwark. There's a minor-injuries clinic at Guy's, which may be offloaded to a separate site and run by a GP practice, but that's the extent of our provision. Some large GP practices (e.g. the Hurley Group Practice at the Lister) offer to treat unregistered patients who need 'urgent or necessary' treatment as a way of monetizing their practice nurses, and this is called a 'GP walk-in centre'. But there are limits to what they can do, and it's understandable that they'll probably prioritise registered patients, which is why it might not be as speedy as a proper walk-in centre (i.e. one that is not run as a GP practice and has no registered patients), or even a trip to A&E. Whether you see GP walk-in centres as a useful addition to the available options or as a form of backdoor polyclinicking is entirely a matter of taste.